Renard the Fox

By Patricia Terry

Renard the Fox is the first modern translation into English of one of the most important and influential medieval books. Valued for its comic spirit, its high literary quality, and its clever satire of feudal society, the tale uses animals to represent the members of various classes. This lively and accessible translation will be welcomed for courses in medieval literature and history, gender studies, and humanities, and will be a treat for the general reader as well.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992.
Renard the Fox is the first modern translation into English of one of the most important and influential medieval books. Valued for its comic spirit, its high literary quality, and its clever satire of feudal society, the tale uses animals to repre

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520912113

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Reviews for Renard the Fox

[philsyphe · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this as part of my BA in English in 2012 and liked it more than expected.The characters are all animals with human characteristics. Sometimes this is confusing, such as when the fox is described as having a thumb, and on another occasion when he’s riding a horse, which evokes weird visuals.Good fun on the whole, but not something I’d give a second reading.

[karl6steel · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

So far, and this is hard for a medievalist to say, I'm finding the Reynard stories excruciating. Threw it on a syllabus for an independent study on Animals in the MA, and lord do I regret it. I suppose the task here is to account for why they're animals at all...

Cultural historians have no doubt loved the rich attention to 12-13th c. Northern French culture: we see, for example, the use of cudgels in judicial combat, and a joke about Bruin the Bear's bleeding face as a the habit of an unidentified monastic order (because, get it?, many new orders founded in the 12th c.! Hilarious!).

Oh, god, finished it. I'll never assign it again.